Bionic Dancing Research

Dr. Rouse was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Biomechatronics Group at the MIT Media Lab from 2012 – 2014. This is a summary of some of his work during his time at MIT.

Adrianne Haslet-Davis, a professional dancer, lost her natural ability to dance when her left leg was amputated below the knee following the Boston Marathon terrorist attack. We set out to build her a bionic ankle prosthesis able to restore her ability to dance. Our team spent 200 days designing the bionic leg. We studied the biomechanics of dancing and designed the bionic technology based on our investigations. Adrianne debuted the technology in her first dance performance since the terrorist attacks at the TED Conference in Vancouver, BC in March 2014.

We studied professional dancers, recording their movements and interactions with the ground in order to design the biologically-inspired technology. Biomechanical information, including ankle joint angles, velocities, and torques, were analyzed. We searched for patterns in the data and mathematical representations that would enable Adrianne to dance naturally again. Following our analysis, we developed a control system that emulated the body’s natural biomechanics. When Adrianne dances with her bionic leg, it responds to the way she moves and interacts with the ground, such that it provides the same biomechanical relationships to those observed from the other professional dancers.

The control system was implemented on a custom bionic ankle prosthesis, commercially available through BiOM. The bionic ankle prosthesis consists of a motor and series spring, inspired by the body’s muscle-tendon architecture. As such, the BiOM bionic ankle prosthesis is the first prosthesis to normalize the natural speed and metabolic cost of walking in below knee amputees. The bionic dancing leg builds on this commercial technology, advancing the science and engineering of artisan movements. The design and control of the bionic dance prosthesis was published in PLOS ONE, an open format scientific journal. The publication can be downloaded for free here.

Adrianne and her dance partner, Christian Lightner, debuted the technology at the conclusion of Professor Herr’s TED talk (below).